


in another life

by infinitymadeimaginable



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, I Made Myself Cry, I promise there's a happy ending, M/M, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, historical goop, regenerating till they get it right, they wilL FIND AND LOVE EACH OTHER IN EVERY UNIVERSE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 20:39:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9675233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitymadeimaginable/pseuds/infinitymadeimaginable
Summary: aka all the universes that kept Yuuri and Viktor apart, and the one that didn’tNo matter how they meet, in whatever universe, under what guise, there are a few constants. Viktor’s hair, Yuuri’s eyes, and the damn-near magnetic pull dragging the two of them together. Each time, they get closer and closer--and each time, the separation gets more and more impossible.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Vienna Teng's 'In Another Life', which also provided the rough inspiration for this fic

The first time they meet, it’s 1580 in Macau: a trading port on the south coast of China, packed with exotic markets, foreign inns and tea-rooms and opium dens, visiting sailors of all nationalities on shore leave, and a general prevailing seediness that, as he picks his way carefully through the slime and muck of the streets, reminds Viktor Nikiforov inexorably of the Russian slum from whence he himself came. A miserable childhood, filled with want and deprivation, had sent him running for the coast the first moment he could--and from his first voyage as a 9-year-old swabbing boy, Viktor had picked his way from ship to ship, port to port, working his way across the entire breadth of the known world. But as he stands here, a million miles from home, his senses assaulted on all fronts, utterly deprived of any hint of familiarity, he can’t help but feel he’s reached the very end of that world. 

He ducks into a small tea-house, which, he finds, is blessedly quiet, with only a few scattered customers occupying the dingy mats on the floor. Viktor joins their number, somewhat self-conscious as he lowers himself to the floor, painfully aware of the way his silvery blond hair and Western features mark him out as a foreigner. He cannot see any sign of anyone working behind the counter, but as he settles in, he hears it. Soft singing coming from the kitchen. The language is unfamiliar, silky, strange-sounding--but he’d have to have a heart of stone not to hear the plaintive, melancholy cry lurking in the words. Viktor understands nothing, and yet he understands everything. And so he sits in the half-dim light of the tea-room, homesick and alone on the other side of the world, his eyes closed, his heart suddenly impossibly full and heavy. He wonders what the song is about; wonders if it’s a lovelorn cry for a lost lover. But the song ends all too soon, and it makes Viktor’s heart break, just a little. 

He’s still staring in the direction of the music’s origin when a young man appears, at last, behind the counter, bearing a tray laden with enamel bowls of tea. Viktor watches as the unknown attendant comes forward, moving with an impossible sense of dignity and grace--as unexpectedly beautiful and pure as his music had been, in a place as ugly and graceless as this.

Viktor is the last customer to receive a bowl of tea from the young man, deposited in front of him with a small, but respectful bow. He knows enough to respond in kind, and as Viktor lifts his head again, he makes eye-contact with the boy, and it’s as if he’s been jolted to his very core.

The boy has high cheek-bones and a delicate, pretty face, with features that Viktor recognises as Japanese--but it’s those _eyes _that Viktor can’t seem to look away from. The most beautifully warm shade of brown, filled with warmth and shyness and melancholy and sheer tenacious _hope _. Soul has met soul, and Viktor thinks to himself that he would follow him to the end of the universe, if it only meant he could keep hearing that music, keep into those eyes.____

There’s some light conversation, in shaky Portuguese--Yuuri, as he discovers the young man’s name to be, has lived in this Portuguese port city for five years, and speaks fluently, but Viktor’s ability to communicate in their only shared language is rather more limited. To an outside observer, there would be nothing particularly noticeable or remarkable about the interaction. But to Viktor, it means everything.

Viktor wishes he could say more, wants to invite Yuuri to sit with him over a cup of tea, wants to take him far away from this dingy shop in this awful town. But then Yuuri is going away, retreating, returning back to the kitchen, back away from Viktor--and Viktor doesn’t even have words for the pang of cosmic discord that strikes at his soul.

He drinks his tea, as if that might soothe his disgruntled feelings, and strains his ear for any further snatches of song from the kitchen. None is forthcoming.

It’s only later, when Viktor finally rises from his mat to pay for the tea, that they confront one another again. Yuuri reaches out his hand to take Viktor’s proffered money, his eyes discreetly bowed and his mouth opening to say something-- _thank you _, maybe. And in this universe, maybe that’s all that’s intended to happen. But Viktor snakes his hand around Yuuri’s wrist to hold his attention, and he shoots for something better.__

“Come with me.” It’s a stupid, eager, breathless offer, one made without thinking. “My ship leaves in the morning. We’re short on staff in the kitchen, and my captain could always use more cabin hands. You’re wasted here, Yuuri--come with me, and come see the world.”

Yuuri stares at him for several seconds in stunned surprise, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. Finally, his movements heartbreakingly soft and deliberate, he withdraws his hand from Viktor’s. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

There’s more, but Viktor can’t understand him--and it’s fine. Really, it’s fine. Viktor cuts him off, extravagantly compliments the tea, summons up a parting smile, and leaves the shop as if nothing’s the matter, as if the offer hadn’t been anything more than casual, as if there isn’t a small, niggling sense of emptiness in his chest that hadn’t been there before. And the next morning, he’s on that ship, pulling ropes and hefting barrels, feeling the salt spray on his face and wisps of his hair dancing in the wind, and he certainly isn’t imagining what it might feel like to have Yuuri here at his side.

It’s not that Viktor spends the rest of his life thinking about that boy (because, really, he doesn’t)--but sometimes, back at home at last in the enforced boredom of a suffocating Saint Petersburg winter, he can’t help but _wonder _.__

\----

The next time they meet, it’s in the Russia of the eighteenth century, and Viktor’s country is changing, opening up to the outside world in ways unthinkable even a generation before. The gods have lavished their blessings on Prince Viktor Nikiforov with an almost comical abundance, and in this world, he is the golden boy of the Russian court: young, beautiful, wealthy, aristocratic, and carefree. Half of the sons and daughters of Europe’s nobility can count themselves among Viktor’s conquests; the prince himself is a constant fixture at the theatre, the ballet, the banquets, the balls, every glittering event in Saint Petersburg’s social calendar. Content in the knowledge that he is desired by all, and possessed by none.

Until, of course, that damnable trip to the ballet one hot summer’s evening. Viktor might regret that night for the rest of his days--but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t remember every moment of it in punishing detail. Even in his private box, the heat had been stifling; the sweat had clung to him in an oppressive film, rendering it impossible for him to even enjoy the secret, highly inappropriate attentions being paid him by his escort for the evening--a visiting Swiss count with a reputation and a history almost as prolific as Viktor’s own. He’d been cranky, fractious, snappish for no reason in particular, other than that he was hot, and bothered, and resoundingly not in the mood for pretty smiles and empty compliments. If he hadn’t heard so much excited gossip about the new Japanese ballet company debuting here tonight, he’d simply have left.

But then the performance had started, and Viktor had been a man transfixed. The prima ballerina, Minako Okukawa, was outstandingly gifted--but it had been the premier danseur, a divinely talented young man named Yuuri Katsuki, who had won Viktor’s attention from the moment he’d stepped onto the stage. He had never seen a danseur capable of such lightness and delicacy, such dazzling spins and footwork, such stunning flexibility. He’d resolutely batted away Christophe’s hand from where it had been fluttering at his waistline, leaned forward in his seat, pressed his hands together as if in prayer, and _lived _Yuuri Katsuki’s performance to its dying breath.__

He’d begun the evening hot and bothered, but by the time it ends, he’s impossibly more so. And when Katsuki and his colleagues had taken their curtain call, nobody had shot to their feet more immediately, or applauded more enthusiastically (and really, there’s no way to prove that the series of noisy wolf-whistles came from Viktor, whatever _slanderous _gossip Christophe might spread about him among their mutual friends).__

It had been the start to an obsession that had lasted all summer long. The Imperial Japanese Ballet was the toast of Saint Petersburg society--but the members of the company themselves were kept curiously secluded, in deference to their country’s general isolationism. That’s not to say, of course, that Viktor didn’t still try to meet their danseur. But multiple attempts to buy, flatter, flirt, or sneak his way backstage after performances had all ended poorly, and so eventually, Viktor had settled for the most classic expression of love and admiration: bouquet after extravagant bouquet of flowers, delivered to Yuuri Katsuki’s dressing room before each and every performance. 

He never receives any response, not even a note. But every night, as Viktor settles into his seat and loses himself once again in Yuuri’s dance, it’s so easy to _pretend _that all the passion, all the emotion, and all the love in the danseur’s performance is intended for him, and him alone.__

After a summer spent neglecting his social obligations in favour of repeat appearances at the ballet, Viktor finds himself being dragged to a masquerade ball, one balmy September evening. He emphatically does not want to attend the party, and it shows. He lurks on the sidelines, handsome and pale and despondent, showing only enough engagement with his surroundings to avoid accusations of outright rudeness. Halfway through the evening, he escapes to the deserted balcony for a moment of fresh air and quiet. Viktor is still there, leaning over the stone edge and nursing his glass of champagne, ignoring the loud noises of whatever fresh drama is currently unfolding back in the ballroom, when all of a sudden, he is there. Yuuri Katsuki’s face might be hidden behind a white mask, but Viktor would recognise him anywhere.

“They told me I would find you here, Your Highness,” Yuuri says, in accented French, and Viktor almost faints. “I wanted to thank you for all your support this summer.”

Viktor downs the rest of his champagne and thrusts his empty glass into an obliging bush. With the gentle strains of the orchestra audible on the balcony, Viktor straightens, smiles, and offers Yuuri his hand.

“Will you dance with me?”

And so it begins. They dance, and dance, and dance: waltzes and tangos and traditional Russian folk-dances, their bodies taut and close as they shift through spontaneous shapes and forms, moving in perfect time to unseen choreography. It’s not perfect, but Yuuri truly is a sublime dancer, and as he lifts and dips and twirls Viktor time and time again, Viktor thinks he’s never had so much fun.

It’s late, the white sky of a Saint Petersburg summer night finally tinged with darkness, when Viktor kisses Yuuri, and he swears he can hear fireworks exploding, angels singing a heavenly chorus, a thousand red roses cascading down on their heads--

And a stream of rapid, agitated Japanese.

They jolt apart in shock, only for Viktor to find Yuuri being quite literally dragged out of his arms by Minako Okukawa.

“I’m so sorry, Viktor,” Yuuri sounds genuinely devastated. “But we’re not meant to be here, and we have to go.”

And just like that--just as bizarrely and unexpectedly as he had arrived a few hours ago--Yuuri is gone.

Viktor is left standing there in the half-mooned twilight, lips tingling, arms empty, and heart filled with an unquenchable longing.

\----

The next time they meet, it’s 1811, and dull little Hasetsu has become the site of imprisonment for a contingent of illegal Russian spies. Viktor Nikiforov, Yuri Plisetsky, and Georgi Popovich claim to be navigators and explorers mapping Kyushu’s coastline, but their presence in Japan is illegal, their foreign meddling unwanted, and the local _bakufu _had had no choice but to take the three men captive. Yuuri Katsuki takes one look at the foreigners as they’re brought into town--their strangely splendid clothes, their thick hair, their alien features--and makes a decision.__

When Yuuri presents himself at the local _bakufu _office a few days later, responding to the call for a local peasant to act as a servant to the prisoners, few questions are asked. Katsuki is a quiet boy, not the type to stir up trouble, without curiosity in the outside world. He’ll do just fine.__

And so, Yuuri Katsuki, who has never once left Hasetsu before in his life, finds himself brought into daily contact with three foreigners, from a land so far away and exotic, they might as well be from the moon.

It’s rough going at first, Yuuri finds. The youngest captive, a skinny blonde boy with a permanent scowl, appears to hate Yuuri on-sight, viciously kicking at his shins whenever the Japanese young man enters his room with his meals. The dark-haired man is silent and sullen, seemingly permanently on the verge of tears; Yuuri soon learns it’s best to serve him quickly, and move on as soon as possible. But it’s the last captive, the ringleader of the suspected spy cell, who becomes Yuuri’s favourite.

Not that there’s any particular reason for him to be, of course. Like Georgi, Viktor Nikiforov largely ignores Yuuri, treating him to, at best, a nod of thanks, or the vaguest hint of a smile. But he’s tall and silver-haired and hauntingly beautiful, and from the moment Yuuri sees him, he knows himself to be utterly lost.

The Russians have been imprisoned for several weeks before, at last, Yuuri works up the courage to carry out his first act of rebellion. His family might be poor, but they’ve always had enough to eat; his mother is a wonderful cook, and it makes Yuuri feel guilty, to see the unappetizing slop the foreigners are dished up. So one day, he enters Viktor’s room with the usual tray of soggy rice and boiled fish, deposited as usual on the small table by the foreigner’s bed. Today, however, Yuuri pauses before he turns to go. He unclips the _koshibento _\--the woven bamboo lunch box attached to his waist--and offers it to Viktor. Inside is his favourite meal of _katsudon _. He smiles, trying to communicate that it’s alright for the Russian to take it.____

Viktor reaches a hand out slowly, watching Yuuri warily, as if waiting for the next phase of a cruel joke to unfold. There is no cruel joke, though, and Yuuri’s smile only broadens as Viktor, finally, accepts the _koshibento _. He watches as the foreigner takes a hesitant bite of the pork cutlet, and feels as if he could fly when, after months of stony silence and implied loathing, Viktor flashes Yuuri a sunny smile and delightedly whispers, _“Vkusno!"___

It’s only the beginning. Over hidden smiles and smuggled bits of food, a friendship begins to develop between the two men. Communication is, of course, a challenge--but Yuuri is delighted when Viktor begins to make use of his time in captivity by learning Japanese, and Viktor is only too happy to test out his new knowledge (in hushed whispers, of course) on the servant. It quickly becomes the highlight of Yuuri’s day: those moments snatched together on either end of Viktor’s meals, under the watchful eyes of the prison keepers. It’s slow, quiet, and achingly careful. Something between them built up, piece by piece, over a matter of days, weeks, months, years.

Loving Viktor, Yuuri discovers, is like jumping off a cliff: before he hits the ground, he could swear that he’s flying.

But hit the ground, he eventually must. It’s not to last, of course. Two years into Viktor’s captivity, they are caught. Yuuri, made bold by a long history of avoiding detection, makes an illicit late-night visit to Viktor’s room. Nothing happens; they sit side-by-side on Viktor’s bed, conversing in quiet Japanese about nothing much in particular, Viktor attempting to teach Yuuri a few Russian phrases to add to his growing vocabulary. Their hands rest next to each other on the bed, close, but not quite touching. They are discovered.

Viktor is protected by international diplomacy; his death, or excessive punishment, would be enough to trigger war with Russia. It’s Yuuri who shoulders the blame: the Japanese who broke rank, who entertained a relationship with a foreigner, who betrayed his country. But Viktor watches him punished, watches him beaten, watches the blood pour and the bruises blossom on the fair, perfect skin he’d so badly wanted to touch, and something in him _breaks _.__

Three years later, when Viktor and his colleagues are released, Viktor writes the record of their time in captivity. It’s of Yuuri that he thinks when he writes, heart in his throat, that the Japanese are loyal, and brave, and kind.

\---

The next time they meet, it’s in the midst of hell, poised on a precipice at the end of the world. Or at least, that’s the way it feels. It’s Germany in April 1945, and the American and Soviet military commands, flush with Allied victory in Europe, have arranged a symbolic meeting between representatives of their respective armies in the conquered town of Torgau, on the Elbe River. 

Yuuri Katsuki is a Private First Class, attached to the 69th Infantry Division of the First Army: the sole Japanese-American in his regiment, the child of immigrants, born with an American passport, and therefore, by chance, able to avoid the forced internment his Japanese-born parents and older sister had been subjected to. He’d already been broken and fragile when he’d first been drafted to fight in a war he didn’t want, for a government who’d made its feelings towards people like him agonizingly clear. But now, four years later, having fought his way across the entire European theatre and somehow, amazingly, survived, Yuuri is beyond broken. He had forced himself, against his deepest nature, to excel in war--and he will never recover from it.

Viktor Nikiforov is a First Lieutenant of the 58th Guards Rifle Division of the 5th Guards Army--a decorated Hero of the Soviet Union for his actions at the Battle of the Dnieper, the pride of his regiment, the symbol of a generation. Or so the war propaganda films all seem to portray. The cameras sent from Moscow to record Viktor Nikiforov in action all fail to capture the truth of the matter: that behind all the heroism and patriotism and strategic brilliance to outwit the enemy at every turn, Viktor Nikiforov is damn close to complete break-down. He’s flailing, falling, tired of the blood, the violence, the screams, the death. He was happy in another life, he remembers. How he’ll ever be again, he simply doesn’t know. 

They meet on 27 April 1945--a day full of symbolic importance, designed by American and Soviet government ministers for the opportunity to publicly celebrate the joint Allied conquest of Germany. While their commanders preen before the cameras, the officers and men of both armies slowly mingle with one another. There’s a contrived holiday atmosphere, with music and food and dancing, but the whole affair is sadder than Yuuri would have ever thought possible: the same hollow eyes and haunted expressions, reflected onto the faces of thousands upon thousands of men.

Yuuri sees a head of silver hair atop a dashing Red Army uniform, and breaks his path to go to him. “My name is Yuuri Katsuki. I’m pleased to meet you.” He sounds too desperate, too haggard, too exhausted--but he could swear he’s met this man before, and it’s the first semblance of familiarity he’s had in all too long.

The Soviet officer looks at him with wide, surprised eyes, but doesn’t question it. “Viktor Nikiforov.” He sounds tired too, but his voice sends shock-waves through Yuuri’s body. “The pleasure is all mine, Yuuri.”

It’s stranger than Yuuri knows how to explain, the way they fit together, fall together, collapse into one another, as if they’ve been wandering in the desert through this entire damn war, looking for nothing more than one another. Yuuri is shy at the best of times, all the more so when he’s as tired and fragile as he is. But over a few bottles of confiscated German beer, he feels himself open up, and so far as he wants to go, there’s Viktor. Viktor with his prettily accented English, Viktor with his beautiful hair and eyes and way of carrying himself, Viktor with his war medals and haunted looks and way of looking at Yuuri as if he’s the only solid thing in a world gone mad. They spend the day together, arm-in-arm, talking and talking and talking, blind to the stares they earn from their respective countrymen. A photographer from _TIME _magazine snaps a candid picture of the two of them together, as a model of Allied friendship, and Yuuri wishes he could scream from the rooftops that this newfound bond with Viktor is so much more than just mere friendship.__

They get off with each other that night, in a tiny stall in a gentlemen’s toilet in a half-bombed-out pub in the town. It’s rushed and quick and imperfect, both of them doing their best to muffle their moans into each other’s mouths. _There’s not enough time, _Yuuri thinks wildly as he brushes Viktor’s hands aside to button up his lover’s shirt for him. _There’s never enough time with him.___

Morning brings parting. Viktor’s regiment is marching on east to Prague, and Christ knows when he and Yuuri will meet each other again. There’s no point in trying to keep in contact; for all this recent show of camaraderie, letters between America and the Soviet Union are difficult, censored, and there’s no way to properly continue the bond they’ve forged here. _Best simply to make a clean break of it, _they silently agree.__

Yuuri finds the picture of himself and Viktor published in _TIME _, two months after he is, at long last, shipped home to Detroit. He illicitly clips the picture from the library’s copy of the magazine and brings it home. The tattered, well-loved photo stays there, tucked under his pillow, until the day Yuuri yields to the inevitable and shoots himself, on Christmas Eve in 1949.__

\---

The next time they meet, it’s the 2015 Grand Prix Final in men’s figure skating. And it’s (in a word) embarrassing. Yuuri has spent a lifetime collecting pictures and posters of the man he swears he remembers from every dream he’s ever had--and now, here before Viktor Nikiforov at last, Yuuri fails. Fails himself, his family, his coach, his friends, his country, and everything he’s ever cared about. In this universe, he’s too beaten to respond when Viktor extends a hand to him.

They do share a night together, dancing and laughing and drinking and having fun--but a night shrouded in the same veil of forgetfulness as all their previous nights together.

And like in all the other universes, Yuuri rises the next morning and leaves, not even fully aware of the significance of what he is leaving behind. 

But in this universe, they have time enough for second chances.

Viktor follows him home to Hasetsu.

And before Yuuri even knows it, it’s 2017, and he and Viktor live together in Saint Petersburg. Yuuri cooks, Viktor does the laundry. They spend their Friday nights curled up together, watching reality TV shows, old Russian cartoons Viktor loved as a child, Yuuri’s guilty pleasure Japanese game shows. They walk their dog together, squabble over their permanently malfunctioning toaster, tango in their socks on the kitchen floor. And sometimes, every so often, they see something--a film, or a snatch of music--that brings it a whisper of something back, like the shiver of a passing train deep underground. The faded memories of those other Viktors, those other Yuuris, those other lives, playing out eternally in some lost dimension. But this is their time, their universe--the one in which, at long last, they can be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Yuuri's song in the first universe is Takeda No Komoriuta, a Japanese folk-song lullaby (which comes from the Kyoto/Osaka region, and I know Yuuri comes from Kyushu, but shhh, we'll make it work)
> 
> Viktor's captivity in the third universe is loosely based on that of Vasily Golovnin, a Russian naval dude who was captured and held for several years for violating sakoku, the policy which forbade foreigners from entering Japan.
> 
> And the fourth universe is set amid the celebrations of Elbe Day, when Soviet and American forces met up and became bros and had a big PR fest in East Germany in 1945, before going right back to hating each other in the Cold War.
> 
> comments, kudos, and bookmarks are all highly welcome!


End file.
